The Fade (Escape, III)

A: When you gain control in the Mage Asunder area of The Fade, there's something you should do first. Transform into a mouse and go into the nearest mouse hole, which will bring you to an isolated room with a rack of weapons. Examining the rack will give you a slight, permanent boost to your strength. So, you won't want to overlook how useful this little aside is. Then, head to location A proper on the map, which is a curved corridor with four rooms leading off of it. In each of these rooms, you'll find groupings of powerful mages that you'll have to kill. Your best bet here is to go into your Burning Man form, and do them in with the Burning Man's powerful attacks. Of course, while those attacks are recharging, you can gain a plethora of supplemental damage by utilizing your basic skills. Each of these rooms provides a bit of a different challenge, so saving in between isn't necessarily a bad idea here, though we'll leave that entirely up to you.

B: The far end of the corridor with the rooms leading off of it will eventually lead to a far larger, more wide-open room. Here, you can expect to do battle with a series of servants. These three servants have rogue-like abilities, so don't expect to see them all at once. Rather, when they finally expose themselves after attempting to stealthily attack you, you can target them and do them in once and for all. If you haven't been using the Burning Man skill, make sure to activate it before leaving this room, since on the other end of the door at the far side of the servant-filled room, you'll run into a wall of fire. Burning Man is necessary to get through. In this room, you'll have to deal with a couple of waves of Lesser Rage Demons. These guys are extremely easy to kill, especially if you stay in your Burning Man form, which will negate all of their powerful fire-based attacks. If you don't stay in your Burning Man form (which would be stupid), expect this battle to be considerably more difficult for you.

C: Save before leaving the last room at location B, where you fought the Lesser Rage Demons (and any servants you may have mistakenly left behind, as well). This even-larger room contains quite a few mages, of varying strengths. These mages can be extremely annoying, because they are spread out, and have seemingly-endless amounts of mana at their disposal, rendering their spells powerful and everlasting. See if you can use the Burning Man's techniques to damage multiple targets at a time, and before they are able to heal themselves, run around and lay the killing blow with your blade (or other weapon at your disposal, whatever that may be). Once all four mages here are slain, you can take a deep breath before moving on.

D: Things get decidedly more complicated here, as you walk into a small room full of both fledgling Mage Pupils, as well as more powerful Mage Instructors. Deal with these enemies as best you can, targeting the instructors before the pupils if you are able to do so, since the instructors have abilities far outweighing the pupils', in terms of power anyway. When all is clear in this room, you can run up the stairs into the next room, but expect to find more of the same up there, as more mages of varying strengths ruthlessly attack you. Use whatever skills and techniques that have been working for you up to this point, as they will certainly assist you here. If you've survived up to this point, nothing should be especially challenging for you from here on out (not to mention, we're just about done in this part of The Fade).

E: Moving on to point E on the map will bring you to the final area of the Mage Asunder location of The Fade. Though there is far more to explore here, you don't have to, and we won't be covering anything further here in the walkthrough. You'll find Stone Golems doing battle with a group of hostile mages, along with what appears to be a friendly mage caught up in the mix. Since the Golems and Mages are fighting each other, choose one side or the other, and assist in their end. Once you've defeated either the Golems or the Mages (it doesn't really matter what group dies first), finish off the other group, and the remaining mage will talk to you, thanking you for breaking his dream-like curse. To help you in your quest, he gives you another shape-shifting ability, this time allowing you to take the form of one of the Golems you just killed. Those pesky doors that you couldn't earlier break down can now be destroyed, allowing you not only to explore the rest of this dungeon, but previous areas we've been, as well. We'll let you do that at your leisure. When you're ready, use the nearby activated pedestal to continue on your journey.